Another year has passed, and ever the curmudgeon, I choose not to look cheerfully forward but to look back cringingly at some of the things I’ve written over the past 12 months that were, shall we say, less than smart.

Yes, it’s time for “Stupid thinks I have said, 2013 edition.”

For the record, this is the 10th installment of “Stupid things,” meaning I’ve been spouting inanities now for over a decade. Please know, I couldn’t have done it without you. My readers clearly rank among the most idiocy-tolerant people in the world, a distant second to Nancy Pelosi voters.

But back to 2013 and my more brain-dead pronouncements. For example, in January, in a column titled “That frog in the boiling pot,” I made the following statement: “Judging from the last two presidential elections, a small majority of Americans now believe that more government is preferable to less government.”

In my defense, I believed that was true when I wrote it. But recent polls suggest I was wrong. When the inevitable consequences of Big Government hit home a couple of months ago, in the form of health insurance cancellation notices, a lot of people realized they weren’t so enamored of it, after all.

In March, in an instant classic titled “The art of passing gas,” I argued that “At the movies you can probably get away with letting one slip, especially during loud music. If people start to glare at you suspiciously, just raise your eyebrows and glare right back. No one will be able to pinpoint the offending party with any certainty.”

If only I had realized, when I typed those words, what a bad cinematic year 2013 would turn out to be (“Lone Ranger,” anyone?). Then I might have said “Feel free, during any movie, to pass gas at will. It’s unlikely to stink more than what you’re watching.”

In April, in “My HOA is bullying me,” I wrote that “when those who are elected to serve the community and handle legitimate problems morph over time into the neighborhood yard police, using the power of their office to harass and threaten neighbors, then they’ve crossed the line from board member to bully.”

Obviously, I should have noted that they’re also ready to run for national office on the Democrat ticket.

And finally, last July, in “Look beyond hysteria to real root cause of violence,” I pointed out that “anytime there’s a high-profile tragedy in this country, we can count on the mainstream media to 1) become hysterical; 2) demand that law-abiding citizens be stripped of their rights; and 3) ignore the real issue.”

Silly me. I left out the MSM’s signature reactions to bad news, as shown during the Healthcare.gov rollout debacle: 4) distort the facts; 5) cover the president’s butt; and 6) vilify those who are in the right, which is to say on the right.

Rob Jenkins is a local freelance writer and the author of Family Man: The Art of Surviving Domestic Tranquility, available at Books for Less in Buford and on Amazon. E-mail Rob at rjenkinsgdp@yahoo.com or visit familymanthebook.com.